Hey all,

First off, I'm in Lorton, VA (about 20 miles south on I-95 from DC). The cat in the picture is somewhere around 1 year old and fixed. I originally trapped him and got him fixed and basic shots by the county (took three separate tries in the cage, county sucks). I am trying to get him socialized with humans so that maybe one day someone can adopt him or at the least I relocate him when I move. Lastly I have access to a vet.

When I first trapped him I brought him inside and kept him enclosed in my bedroom. He was pretty 50/50 about being handled and I will admit I pushed too hard and quickly with him. While there were times he sat on my lap and allowed me to pet him, other times he absolutely shredded me. After an especially egregious shred and waiting for the county to get back to me, I released him back outside. I have two cats and the 4 days without my kid were coming to an end so I had to release him for safety. Since then I have been feeding him near daily on my patio. He generally spends most of the day on my patio (as seen in the pic) and routinely scratches at the sliding door and mews, though he darts when I come outside.

So I guess after the long paragraph there my question is this: how can I get him more trusting and socialized/ready to handle by humans? The first time I got him to let me pet him outside was when I gave him a churu. Since then I've been pouring food and holding my hand in front of the bowl. He's come up a few times and sniffed my hand, will on a rare occasion let me stroke him once, and then runs away and/or swats me. If he swats me the food goes away and I try again later in the same method. Is this kind of pavlovian training moral? I will note that other neighbors feed him with wet and dry food so he's not starving; he just comes to me regularly because he's had a steady steam of food for a while now. I really want to get him socialized so he can be taken care of by someone when I'm not around.

Advice on socializing a stray